Wow okay, I was slightly wrong on the duration indeed. Do you need to be so agressive though? I do not think my messages were, good grief.
That’s not the impression I got - you came across as sarcastic and unnecessarily rude when the results you posted were predicted in the very same post you were quoting. If that was not your intention then I apologise, but I have low tolerance for snark, especially when what I’m saying is backed by data, not government propaganda - I’m not a huge fan of the government.
I made a very simple statement of fact - based on all available data regarding Omicron keeping the restrictions in place made no sense to the UK government, and weeks down the line we see the exact result that was expected. It’s simply not as deadly as earlier variants, it incubates fast and it’s extremely contagious, equivalent to the likes of measles. I have no doubt that most cases go completely unreported, but as I stated earlier, the gross majority are about as severe as a cold, with symptoms passing after around three days. If the point you were trying to make was that some people will die from it, you’re not wrong - some people definitely will - people die for all sorts of reasons, the question is whether it’s worth to shut the country down over it. By this point people in risk groups should’ve been vaccinated three times over, if they haven’t gone through the trouble of getting a free shot after two years, they’re clearly not intending to get one now. We can’t stay in our basements forever and pretend that this is an acceptable state of affairs, not when the risk is minimal. From a macro perspective, the value of generating herd immunity via the spread of a (comparatively speaking) benign variant, and the value of returning to a semblance of normalcy, cannot be overstated. If the data we have on Omicron is correct then for all intents and purposes this is the end game for most people - it’s over.
For the record, I wouldn’t be surprised if we *did* see record COVID deaths at some point, as seen across the pond. That’s not because Omicron is particularly deadly - it’s because it spreads like wildfire, infecting orders of magnitude more people than earlier variants. In other words, we’re dealing with a “small slice of a bigger pie” kind of situation - it’s a small subset of a larger total. Most cases will likely never be reported due to the mild nature of the infection and the fast recover time (around three days). Many people will just assume they caught a cold, they’ll never get tested and they’ll never know they had it. Of all the variants out there Omicron is by far the most preferable - most people are open to the risk of sniffles, but not open to the prospect of coughing their organs out. So, to reiterate, this is not an excuse for complacency - people should not treat this as an excuse to engage in irresponsible behaviour or to lower their hygiene standards. With that being said, we’re dealing with a very different virus now, and with the virus changing, so should the approach towards it.
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Sicklyboy:
